Here are a handful of apps which are perfect for entertaining little kids, from toddlers to nearly school age. There’s a paint app, a music app, connect-the-dots dinosaurs and an app full of little puzzles and skill-testers. With these apps on the ready, you’ll be able to keep a small child entertained for hours. Let’s hope it never comes to that, though!

Most kids love nursery-rhyme apps, cute pictures and interactivity, and this app has all of the above. Visually, this app is like an indie game with a really stylish look. The kids turn a cog to choose which song they’ll hear, then they can click on people or animals in each scene as thy listen to the songs.

I’d suggest keeping the volume low on this one, as the songs can really grate after a while. But don’t let that dissuade you. It’s outweighed by the super-cute images and small amount of interactivity. Your kid will love it for a while at least.

This app is hours of entertainment rolled into one. For each level, the child is presented with a game of skill. For instance, the level could be matching cards, clicking on a letter, spot the differences, click on all the red things, what’s wrong with the picture, which is the odd one out, mazes, match the item with the shadow, do a puzzle, etc. The child can give it a go or skip the level.

For each completed level, points are given according to how quickly the level was completed. Every now and then, the child can choose stickers as a reward for the points they’ve accumulated. It’s a cute little way to show progress, but the real fun is in the games. They’re fairly easy, but require certain skills to complete. They also teach little kids about how to use the tablet, like dragging and clicking.

All kids love connect-the-dots, and they are even cooler on computers because it’s so easy to swipe a line, make a picture and move on to the next one. Now, add to that the fact that this app has dinosaur pictures on stunning backgrounds. And guess what happens when you complete the picture? ROAR!! It’s awesome.

As a free preview, you only get 5 dinosaurs, so it is tempting to fork out for the full app (€1,69). For just a couple of dollars, you get dozens more dinosaurs and options. Yeah, you know you want it.

There are tonnes of Paint apps for kids, but this one is cute and cheery, easy to use and fun. You can fill sections, “spraypaint” sections (it’s a patterned fill), draw free-form and place stamps. I can speak from experience when I say the little ones are really happy to see a picture unfold quickly due to their random choices. They also LOVE stamps. for kids that can’t yet draw competently, nothing is better than being able to splat flowers and rainbows all over the page.

There are dozens of cute, free drawings to colour in. There are animals, underwater scenes, dinosaurs, Easter images, a Christmas pack and more. You can buy packages of images for €1,99 such as the girls pack, dinosaur pack, Easter pack and Halloween pack, or you can buy the full game for €5,99. It’s your choice though, as the rest of the app works perfectly without the paid extras.